126 Seward and Gowan .— The Maidenhair 
examples of seeds produced on the marginal portions of the 
lamina (Fig. 61), and in some specimens the blade of the leaf 
was almost entirely transformed into a group of ovules of 
smaller size than those borne on normal flowers. The collar 
at the base of the ovules was found to pass gradually into 
the lamina of the modified leaf. In one example figured 
by this author, the peduncle, which is unusually thick and 
bears several ovules, terminates in a scaly bud. He describes 
the peduncle as a shoot, and the slender stalk of each ovule 
is regarded as the petiole of a carpellary leaf. He found that 
a peduncle bearing several ovules is usually traversed by as 
many vascular bundles as there are ovules; each of the 
bundles in the peduncle divides into two in the ovule-stalks, 
so that each carpellary petiole possesses two small strands 
similar to those in an ordinary leaf-stalk. 
Our own examination of normal and abnormal flowers leads 
us to adopt the view that the peduncle of the female flower 
of Ginkgo is a shoot bearing two or more carpels. Each 
ovule is enclosed at the base by an envelope or collar 
homologous with the lamina of a leaf; the fleshy and hard 
coats of the nucellus constitute a single integument. The 
stalk of an ovule, which is considerably reduced in the normal 
flower and much longer in some abnormal flowers, is 
homologous with a leaf-stalk, with which it agrees in the 
structure and number of the vascular bundles. The following 
examples afford evidence favourable to this view of the 
morphology of the female flower. 
We attach considerable importance to the evidence afforded 
by abnormal flowers; deviations from the normal must be 
dealt with cautiously as aids to morphological interpretation, 
but granting the truth of the saying ‘ On verrait en elles tout 
ce qu’on voudrait y voir, 5 abnormalities are at least useful 
guides as to possible lines of evolution. 
PI. IX, Figs. 4, 15-20. Fig. 4, PL IX, represents the apex 
of a short shoot bearing a small foliage-leaf, shown in the 
drawing as a leaf-scar, /, subtending two slender stalks, each 
of which terminates in a small ovule. In a transverse section 
